


You'll Stumble In My Footsteps

by define_serenity



Series: Snowbarry Week 2016 [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bodyswap, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Hurt/Comfort, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/define_serenity/pseuds/define_serenity
Summary: “You’re–” Cisco points at Barry, eyes wide and disbelieving and his heart picks up speed just considering it, “and you’re–” He points at Caitlin with his other hand, then crosses and uncrosses his arms a few times trying to signal the word he can’t wrap his mind around.“Don’t you see?” Cisco beams. “It’s freaking Freaky Friday!”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **Snowbarry Week 2016** , day 6: bodyswap.

“You got _what_?!”

Caitlin’s sharp voice travels the circumference of the Cortex and well beyond it, stopping him and Harry dead in their tracks.

Not again.

Cisco and Harry exchange a brief glance, bated breath and all, but wordlessly decide to wait this out—maybe they heard wrong, maybe Caitlin and Barry were just talking really loudly and everything was a-okay.

They were only gone for half an hour; what could have possibly gone wrong in the short amount of time they took driving to Jitters and back?

“I got-” sounds Barry’s dejected reply, “-whammied.”

The word travels so far back in their past it nearly blows a hole in the space-time continuum. Had there been a meta alert? The _one time_ he leaves his phone on his desk?

“ _Whammied_ ,” Caitlin repeats, somehow intoning both concern and a distinct _I told you this would happen_ vibe. “What with?”

Shuffling, he and Barry listen for an answer, practically on the tips of their toes straining to hear—anything that might keep them from having to go in there. Alas, neither of them catches Barry’s answer.

Harry faces him. “It’s your turn.”

“Hell nah.” Cisco huffs. “I’m not going in there.”

“Neither am I,” Harry says, in that matter-of-fact way the other Dr Wells hadn’t yet welded to perfection.

“One of us has to.”

Grumbling, Harry transfers the carton with the coffees to his left hand, making a fist with his right.

He sighs, but holds out his own right fist.

Rock-paper-scissors solves way too many problems around here.

They shake three times and make their move—he hits scissors, Harry rock. Damn.

Harry gives him a terse nod. “Ask him what whammied him.”

Cisco scowls but stomps towards the Cortex, bulleting together a mental list of tests to put Barry through; they can’t afford another Prism –slash- Rainbow Raider loose in Central City, or a repeat of the damage Barry did last time. That’s probably half of what fuels Caitlin’s anger right now.

“Hey, guys!” he tries to cut in as cheerful as he can when he joins Barry and Caitlin in the medical room, but they’re still at it, voices angry and exasperated.

“Friends,” his voice trails off. “ _Amigos_.”

Caitlin sighs.

Barry’s still in his suit, sitting on the bed with Caitlin in front of him, who’s uncertainly shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

Neither of them pays him any attention.

Sadly, this has become part of their routine; Caitlin and Barry have been arguing more and more for no reason that he can think of, and sometimes they have full blown fights where Caitlin shouts and Barry barely manages his cool, and they storm off in opposite directions.

They always make up, somehow, in the privacy of their own home, though these past few weeks the pressure between them has been steadily building to its boiling point. He thinks they may be close to reaching it. Would they break up? What would that mean for the team?

Sometimes he thinks he’s the only one who worries about that.

Harry flat-out admitted he didn’t think they’d even last this long, given Barry’s track record, but he’d hoped things would be different this time around. After all they’d lost and all they’d been through, his closest friends deserved to be happy.

“Honestly, Barry,” Caitlin sighs, a common defeatist sound around here, and she shakes her head. “I can’t keep this up.”

“ _You_ can’t?” Barry’s eyes widen, yet doesn’t move an inch as Caitlin comes closer, carefully poking her fingers around his eye, which seems to be bruised. “I’m the one who’s out there-”

“Risking _your life_ -” Caitlin interrupts, when—

Both of his friends freeze, like his phone’s screen does when he makes a screenshot, and then they cry out in unison, Caitlin violently jerking her arm back while Barry touches a hand to his cheek.

“Guys?” he asks, watching the whole thing play out in front of his eyes like some terribly scripted piece of slapstick.

Then, Caitlin jumps a step back, stuttering, “Wh-Who are you?” at Barry, before she loses her balance on her left stiletto and drops to the floor.

“Caitlin!” he shouts and shoots forward, diving down to help Caitlin up again—she’s looking around wildly, at her feet and her hands, and is decidedly not cooperating in the whole helping-her-stand-up-again department.

“What the-” she hushes, as un-Caitlin-like as she can manage, standing again with her feet too far apart.

“Ramon?” Harry calls from the hallway, clearly still trying to listen in.

“Barry?” comes Barry’s own voice.

He looks at Barry, whose eyes are travelling up and down Caitlin’s body, then at Caitlin, whose eyes show nothing but undisguised horror- what is going on?

Barry stands up in one jerky move, wobbly on his legs, and speeds away.

“She has my speed,” Caitlin hushes.

He frowns, whiplash working its way around his spinal column from how many times he’s turned his head over the last minute.

“ _She_?” Cisco asks.

“Caitlin!” Caitlin calls.

“But _you’re_ -” he starts, before he slowly starts taking in Caitlin’s stance—her feet apart, knees turned inward as she slips on her heels again. This time, she catches herself in time and finds support on a hospital bed.

Cisco’s eyes narrow. What the hell’s going on here?

Somewhere in the hallway, Barry releases a high-pitched scream and Harry mumbles something incomprehensible—five seconds later Harry comes in, dragging Barry by the arm.

“Okay.” Harry delivers Barry to the offshoot room again. “What’s going on?”

Barry touches a hand to his chest, blinking a few times.

Caitlin, on her part, remains as still as she can, her legs shaking.

And then realization kicks in.

“You’re-”

He points at Barry, eyes wide and disbelieving and his heart picks up speed just considering it, “and you’re-”

He points at Caitlin with his other hand, then crosses and uncrosses his arms a few times trying to signal the word he can’t reach his head around.

“Why are you doing that?” Harry asks. “That’s annoying.”

Cisco beams. “Don’t you see?”

Every eye in the room turns to him.

“It’s freaking Freaky Friday!”

 

.

 

“This is not awesome, Cisco,” Caitlin’s voice calls, but he has to remind himself it’s Barry saying it—keeping this straight in his head is going to be a nightmare.

With the initial shock worn off, Caitlin– _Barry_ had thrown off Caitlin’s heels, and after Harry (not a moment too soon) added that the bodyswap was more than likely a result of Barry’s whammy both his friends had found a secluded room—Barry made it quite clear he wouldn’t be walking around in his girlfriend’s body _and_ a dress, no matter how well it fit.

He and Harry had followed, as one does when trying to keep track of things.

“This is a disaster,” Caitlin agrees, before he hears the zipper of her dress being undone. He’s trying to picture what it would be like if he were in her shoes, or rather, Barry’s shoes, helping herself undress. Somehow, it comes out looking wrong.

“Give me the—” Caitlin’s voice again, and he looks over his shoulder to watch Barry’s body hand Caitlin’s a S.T.A.R labs t-shirt and hoodie, along with some slacks.

“Don’t take off the bra,” Barry– damn it, no, _Caitlin says_ , carefully draping her dress over a chair.

“It’s really _uncomfortable_.”

Barry smiles, but it comes out like one of those quietly triumphant ones Caitlin manages—it’s so trippy he can tell it’s Caitlin in there. “Welcome to my world.”

Caitlin reappears fully clothed, Barry moving around somewhat less awkward in her body now—Caitlin forces Barry to sit, and pulls her own hair back in a ponytail. She struggles for a bit, clearly never having done it for someone else but herself, or with Barry’s hands, but she succeeds.

All he and Harry can do is stare, really, because the whole thing is freaky as hell. What would it be like to be in a girl’s body? With all its other—parts? Maybe it’s lucky Barry and Caitlin swapped, having seen each other naked already and all, rather than—

Cisco shudders. No, he’s not going there.

“Guys, can you please stop staring?” Barry asks, and rubs at his eyes. Her eyes? They’re Caitlin’s eyes, but now they’re Barry’s for a while, so does he keep his pronouns? Barry’s a guy and he identifies as a guy, so even though he’s in a woman’s body he should still refer to everything Barry does with he and his. Right?

He’s going to go cross-eyed before the day is over.

“Maybe we should stick post-its to their foreheads,” Harry remarks, while he already feigns for the desk.

“I’m not putting a post-it on my forehead.”

Neither he nor Harry needs to hear her voice to know who said that.

“Snow, this is serious.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

Caitlin crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes, and they’re Caitlin’s eyes through and through, along with the leg she juts out to rest on her dominant right one—it’s reassuring to see her soul made the swap too. It makes him almost hopeful it can be undone.

“I’m _in_ Barry’s body,” Caitlin adds.

Barry, in the mean time, starts tugging at the ponytail Caitlin twisted in his hair, clearly too tight.

He and Harry take a step back.

“One of us should keep an eye on them,” Harry says, “In case—”

“ _Don’t touch that_ ,” Caitlin snaps.

“—of that.”

Cisco nods. “I’ll do it.”

“You will?”

Looking up at Harry he’s about to underscore the gravity of the situation, especially since Barry’s speed is still very much inside his body and Caitlin has no training as a speedster _and there’s a metahuman loose in the city who can make people swap bodies_ , but it’s a discussion made futile once Barry storms out past them.

“I’ll keep an eye on him—” Harry shakes his head, “— _her_.”

Harry looks down at him. “Probably shouldn’t let them leave the lab.”

“Yeah.”

With that, Harry sets off after Caitlin, and he’s left to tend to his best friend, stuck in his own girlfriend’s body. He can’t help but wonder what that’s like—to inhabit a body you’ve, like- yeah no, he can’t go there either; they’re both his best friends and this is bizarre enough without his imagination adding to it.

“How are you feeling?” Cisco asks.

Barry shrugs, sitting on the stool legs spread, elbows on his knees and face in hand, and it’s so un-Caitlin-like, or rather, so completely Barry, it unspools a distinct unease he hadn’t been aware had spun him into a mess. Because arguably, if they can’t find a way to fix this, it’s a downright disaster; never mind that Caitlin could learn to control Barry’s speed. If this is permanent they’ll have to make some major changes.

If Harry’s right though, and this was a result of getting whammied, he might just need another dose of the same to fix everything.

“This could be a great opportunity for you guys,” Cisco says, but instantly regrets saying anything. It’s not like he knows what they’re really fighting about—it always starts over something trivial, like a ponytail, and spins into shouting matches that have him fleeing the room. He’s often theorized what might be at the core of it—Caitlin’s fear of losing someone else? Barry’s need to often be two people rather than the Flash and himself at the same time?

“We’re in each other’s bodies, Cisco.” Barry rubs the back of his neck. “I can’t read her mind.”

“Maybe that’s not the point.”

Barry looks up.

“There’s something to the saying ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’”—he raises his hands in surrender, afraid he might soon get an earful too. If he were really talking to Caitlin, he might have already—“which, my friend, you have already failed at miserably.”

This, at least, coaxes a smile out of Barry, and his eyes skip over the blue pair of heels he’d been all too happy to take off. He’s not sure he’s ever seen Caitlin’s beautiful face smile so mournfully though—that’s more a thing for Barry’s face.

“I don’t know,” Barry sighs, eyes unable to settle anywhere. “I thought things would be different this time. That I could have someone in my life and be The Flash too, but—”

Cisco remains silent, because for the first time in weeks Barry’s opening up to him about this and he wouldn’t want him to stop now.

“The timing’s right, and there are no secrets, and—”

Barry draws in a deep breath, picking at the palm of Caitlin’s hand.

“She doesn’t understand, Cisco,” Barry says. “Why I have to be out there. Why I have to be The Flash.”

And when Barry looks at him he recognizes the look in Barry’s eyes all too well—it’s pain he’s seen etched on too many faces, not just Caitlin’s and Barry’s, though it’s their pain he’s closest to. He saw it after Ronnie died, and when he disappeared through the black hole; he saw it the first time Barry told them about his mom’s death; he saw it after Jay died in front of Caitlin’s eyes, and when Barry’s dad died at the hands of the same man.

When he looks in the mirror, he often sees it in his own face, too.

Defeat.

 

.

 

It isn’t long before an alert draws them all back to the Cortex; he rushes in with Barry not far behind, while Harry and Caitlin are already seated behind the monitors, showing live video footage from a movie theatre.

“That’s him!” Caitlin’s finger points out a small skittish man skulking around, and Barry takes his usual place behind Caitlin, one hand automatically drawn to her shoulder—now, his own shoulder.

“What are we going to do?” comes Caitlin’s voice, much less panicked than its usual timbre. “I don’t have my speed.”

“You’re also in your girlfriend’s body,” Cisco scoffs. “A little perspective here, bro.”

“Caitlin can do it,” Harry says.

Within nanoseconds, Caitlin jerks in her chair as if stung by a bee—

“No, I won’t,” she huffs hastily and stands up so ungracefully it’s like Barry’s back inside the right body, stuttering and stumbling until she’s put some distance between her and them.

“How will I even fit in the-” Barry’s body gestures at the suit, set in its usual alcove in the lab, until reality sets in again. Caitlin looks down at the body she’s stuck in, a few inches taller than her own, and sighs.

Most people could chomp at the bit to get the briefest taste of being a speedster, but not Caitlin.

His eyes narrow on his best friend’s body, his other best friend’s soul, at how her fingers knot together until she once again takes note of the fact that they’re not her fingers.

“I’m not going out there.” Caitlin crosses her arms over her chest, but clearly misses something there too because they come down again, before she self-consciously touches a hand down Barry’s chest.

He, Barry and Harrison tilt their heads.

Caitlin draws in a deep breath. “I don’t know the first thing about being a speedster.”

“Sure you do,” Barry beats him to the answer—Caitlin might not have ever felt what it’s like before, but there are no people in the world who are more versed in the impossible than they are. They’ll walk her through this.

“I’ll teach you,” Barry says.

“No.” Caitlin’s mouth tightens, and there’s a resoluteness in her eyes he’s scarce seen before—he thinks it might be Barry’s. The anger is entirely hers. “You won’t.”

“Caitlin-” Barry says softly, but Caitlin draws a step back and shakes her head, effectively leaving the room.

Silence falls in the wake of Caitlin’s departure, filled by a sigh from Barry and his and Harry’s tread around the elephant in the room. If Barry had been more careful none of this would’ve happened.

He can’t believe he’s watching Barry and Caitlin’s relationship fall apart in front of his eyes and neither of them is fighting for it. Granted, they’re at DEFCON 1 in the meta department, but they need each other through this—that’s how they found each other in the first place.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Cisco says.

Barry nods, hands at his hips. Lost.

He finds Caitlin in the same spot he’d talked to Barry not twenty minutes ago, only Caitlin’s standing, her hands locked, feet shuffling, pulling her chest inwards as if she’s in physical pain.

He’s not used to seeing Barry’s body carried in such a calm manner, in the often tight and small space Caitlin claims for herself, Barry’s fingers rubbing together before his hands ball into fists, his body trying to make itself smaller and smaller.

“I thought it would be different, Cisco,” Caitlin says unprompted. “Being with Barry.”

All the things she chooses to leave unsaid encompass losses they’ve both suffered, they’ve all suffered, in a way, but none felt them deeper than Caitlin did. Ronnie and Jay, Dr Wells even, they’d all left their mark on a heart not easily won in the first place. Barry might’ve had the hardest time of all, after all Caitlin has been through already, yet, somehow, they’d found each other, helped heal the wounds of the past and built the start of a future together. They don’t live together because it’s convenient, they don’t have a spare room to house guests or people that might drop in—no, what they have is worth fighting for.

“It’s not?” His face scrunches, hoping to find some way to lighten the mood. He came here to talk but has little idea of what to say. “Even with the- speed? libido?”

The air trembles with the sound of a smile. “Of course he’s _different_ ,” Caitlin says, and shrugs. “He’s- thoughtful and funny and he gets why I do what I do. He drives me crazy, and I know that he loves me, but-”

In the broadest strokes Barry isn’t different at all—Caitlin’s drawn to the hero type, the kind of man who puts his own life before others’, and too often she’s lost that man. Maybe they’ve had enough close calls, or at least one too many, for Caitlin to carry.

“I don’t know. It’s been so long, I thought-” Caitlin releases a shuddery breath. “I thought somehow it would be easier.”

Her fears are founded, as are Barry’s, but he thinks no one would get anywhere in any relationship if they didn’t at least try to address those fears. Have Caitlin and Barry ever talked to each other about this? About Barry’s need to be two people and her terror watching him run into danger?

They’ve made it through their big fights each time, but do they talk about what’s at the core of them?

Caitlin turns to face him. “I don’t want his speed, Cisco.”

It pains him to see her like this, torn between the man she loves and this superhero persona he takes on every day, not knowing if he’ll come back to her. Barry’s speed is half the reason they fight so much, and now the Speed Force courses through her veins.

He thought this would bring them closer together.

Now he fears it might be the thing that undoes them.

Before he’s able to say anything remotely comforting, Barry enters the room—Caitlin schools her expression instantly and he wishes she wouldn’t do that, not for anyone’s benefit. She needs to address what she’s feeling.

“Caitlin, look,” Barry breathes. “I know you didn’t ask for this, but this guy is going to keep doing this to people. Joe already-”

At the mention of Joe he watches Caitlin’s shoulders, _Barry’s shoulders_ , slump in defeat, her unusual sense of duty kicking in. Caitlin’s eyes soften, setting with a determination she learned after years of working here. “What do you want me to do?”

“Harry thinks all you need to do is get whammied again to fix this,” Barry says. “You’ll have to get close enough to look him in the eye.”

Caitlin bites at her lower lip, quickly quitting when it turns out it’s not exactly her lip. But both he and Barry know what that means.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Barry whispers, reaching out both hands for Caitlin’s shoulders. “I’ll talk you through this.”

Cisco averts his eyes, and busies himself with his tablet; he probably shouldn’t be here for this.

“This is so weird,” follows Barry’s voice, and the sound of both his friends’ smiles.

How weird would it be weird to have a touching moment with a boyfriend or a girlfriend and stare up into your own eyes?

“What?” asks Caitlin, and he looks up in time to watch Barry tap at his own shoulders, clearly not used to having to reach _up_.

“Nothing-” Barry shakes his head, corners of his mouth pulling down. “Just never realized how short you were.”

Caitlin gasps, raising a finger in warning. “ _Hey_.”

 

.

 

“No, that’s a bad idea,” Harry says, and repeats the same into the speakers for Caitlin to hear, “Snow, that’s a bad idea!”

After taking ten minutes to wrangle Barry’s body into his suit and a cursory lesson on how to run at the speed of sound, Caitlin had left in search of their meta. And, honestly, he never expected her to act so rash—she’d sped in without getting a proper overview of the theatre, even though Barry warned against that, successfully stopped a young couple from getting whammied, and things went downhill from there.

She was actually trying to fight this guy with her fists—

“I thought I was meant to get close,” sounds Barry’s voice, which makes keeping track of who’s who infinitely harder—maybe they did need to consider post-it notes or name tags or something of the sort, because he’s decidedly allocated too much brain power trying to keep this straight in his head.

“ _Close_ ,” he stresses, “not punched out.”

“I can take this guy, easy.”

Was she somehow _turning into_ Barry?

“Caitlin”—Barry practically curls around the speaker he’s sitting behind, rarely having been in this position before—“You don’t know how to use your speed like that.”

Without having to be a mind reader he knows Barry’s recalling Tony Woodward and the bones he broke fighting him, or all the punches he’s endured since; Barry may heal quickly, but he’s not impervious to pain, or the fear that his girlfriend may now suffer the same fate.

“You’ll break your- my-” Barry stutters, sighing. “Caitlin, you’ll break your hand!”

A hard bang echoes through the Cortex through the speakers, then a yelp, then the sound of glass breaking.

“ _Caitlin_.”

Barry shoots up from his chair, sending it flying back with such force it rolls into the hallway, and if he’d been at all capable he would’ve raced over there without thinking first—it’s a powerlessness he’s all too familiar with, one he’s seen in Caitlin’s face far too often.

No reply comes. There’s just that loud and terrible silence, of not knowing anything, of uselessness—usually it means Barry’s too busy to answer.

“Caitlin!” Barry yells this time, and curls fingers around the collar of his shirt, two of them coming down over his carotid.

“You okay, man?”

The effort it takes Barry to draw oxygen into Caitlin’s lungs seems too impossible for the answer to that question to be anywhere in the realm of ‘yes.’

“My heart’s racing,” Barry breathes, folding in half.

“And you’re having trouble breathing?”

Barry nods frantically.

Moving on automatic, he offers Barry his chair—he’s run through this protocol before.

Barry places a hand over his stomach, wheezing, “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re having a panic attack.”

“Caitlin is,” Harry interjects, before waving a dismissive hand. “Caitlin’s body is.”

“What?” Barry squeaks.

“Caitlin’s body is responding to your panic,” Harry explicates, while still monitoring Caitlin on the computer. “It might be you inside her body, but physiologically it’s responding like she would.”

Barry keels over, bringing his head down between his legs. “She has panic attacks?! Why didn’t she tell me?”

For once, he refrains from answering, and pats at Barry’s back instead. Any moment now Barry might have a panic attack over having panic attacks and they’ll be even worse off. It’s not his business to tell Barry why he thinks Caitlin keeps this a secret from him, no matter how many times he’s tried to raise the issue with Caitlin—she’s driven not to needlessly worry Barry over every little thing, but he’d hardly called Caitlin’s panic attacks of late a little thing.

They’re a recent development following in the wake of a particularly nasty meta that made them all live through their biggest fears, a physiological response to coming too close to that fear each time Barry takes risks.

Often, he’s wondered if Caitlin saw each person she loved die, too.

“Guys, I did it!” Barry’s voice rings over the speakers, and it’s hard to miss the collective sigh of relief it causes in the room.

“I’m on my way back.”

Barry groans.

 

.

 

He waits exactly three entire seconds for Caitlin to pull back Barry’s cowl before he confronts her. After all they’ve endured together, every time they sat behind those monitors and Barry gave them a heart attack, each time she herself ended up screaming at Barry about how he took too many risks and should take greater care— _she’s the one_ ignoring her own advice?

Could this be some kind of strange side effect of the bodyswap?

“Cisco!” Caitlin lights up when she sees him, and she tiptoes over to him. “That was so amazing! Running around like that, at that speed, it’s the biggest rush I’ve ever felt!”

He crosses his arms over his chest.

“I never knew it could feel like this!” Caitlin rants, gesticulating with her hands—he’d have the time to consider how cute it was to see Barry’s body move in a way that’s so characteristically Caitlin, but he’s too upset. _She could have been hurt_.

“I mean, I help people all the time,” Caitlin says, “but to actually get to _stop_ people from getting hurt?”

“Do you hear yourself?” he asks, his voice gaining strength—he has a mind to yell at her too, but he holds back. He wouldn’t want her to think he’s saying it because she’s a woman. Or- well. She is, isn’t she?

Whatever. She’s at least somewhat of a hypocrite.

“Cisco, I’m fine,” Caitlin says, and the softness that sets around Barry’s green eyes is hers again, through and through.

His shoulders relax.

Everything did work out all right. With any luck, Barry and Caitlin will need one skin-to-skin touch and they’ll be in the right body again.

“I’m in Barry’s body.” Caitlin shrugs. “I knew he could take it.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind an alarm goes off, and his vision bleeds red for countless of moments— _I know I can take it_ sounded awfully close to the kinds of things Barry used to say, and she berated him for. Barry often still shrugs off danger with that kind of cavalier attitude they both hate so much.

Caitlin freezes the second she realizes what she said. Her eyes widen, and her lips set in that shocked little expression she has, but it’s Barry’s face and it’s—well, it’s adorable.

But it damn well shouldn’t be. She should’ve taken greater care.

“Oh God”—she blinks—“do I sound like him?”

She releases a slow even breath, stilling. Would he become reckless too, with Barry’s powers? A little power hungry, maybe?

“Where is he?” Caitlin pouts, her shoulders slumping.

“In the lab.”

For some reason, once Caitlin passes him, he follows behind her—maybe it’s mostly his curiosity getting the best of him, but he does need to see if this second whammy will undo the first. So he does it for science, too, he’s certain.

He halts right outside the lab where he has a good view, while Caitlin makes her way inside.

“Barry?” she calls carefully.

It’s still way too trippy to hear Barry’s voice call his name.

But Barry doesn’t move.

Caitlin sits down next to him on the treadmill, throwing an arm around his shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

Barry has Caitlin’s hands pressed up against his face, sitting along the treadmill crunched up like a ball—he didn’t even know Caitlin’s body could do that. “How can you ask me that?”

When Caitlin frowns, it’s entirely Caitlin’s unkempt concern that knits around Barry’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

It’s never made much sense to him either; how does she put Barry’s health and wellbeing before her own panic? How does she set aside that panic to take stock of Barry’s injuries, or now, his mental health? How do they let her successfully efface herself each time one of them gets hurt?

“Do you feel like this every time I’m out there?” Barry mutters.

Caitlin looks up, and shakes her head at him, wordlessly asking what happened.

“She-man had a panic attack,” Cisco says, but decides to remain at a distance—finally, they seem to be getting somewhere.

For a moment Caitlin’s eyes search the room helplessly, before her gloved hand strokes down Barry’s back. “I don’t go through this every time,” she reassures. “But enough to be upsetting.”

Cisco catches the half lie, but can’t bring himself to address it now—Caitlin’s panic attacks haven’t happened each time Barry’s gone out to fight a meta, but they are growing more frequent, and not for the first time he thinks she shouldn’t sugarcoat this. Now that the truth’s out they should talk about it, not around it, because that’ll land them in the exact same situation they were in before all this happened.

Then, Caitlin peels off one of the suit’s gloves, waiting for Barry to catch on.

“Knock on wood?” Caitlin asks with a wry twitch in her lips.

Barry nods, and reaches his hand for Caitlin, their skins touching moments later.

They gasp and scream in pain and pull back their hands as if struck by lightning, sitting stupefied for a few moments.

Cisco holds his breath, while he hears Harry comes running.

“Did it work?” Harry asks, out of breath.

Annoyed, Cisco raises a hand to silence the taller man, and they both wait nervously to see if Harry’s theory was right—if it is, they’ll be able to help a lot of people switch back into their bodies.

Caitlin slowly unfolds from the position she’d been sat in, and surveys her fingers, “Oh, thank God,” she breathes, and not too subtly manages to check on her chest, drawing a line down the center of it.

His nose scrunches.

To his left, Harry releases a breath.

Another crisis averted.

“You know I believe in you, right?” follows Caitlin’s voice, her own this time, things put right again.

Barry looks up.

“I hope you do.”

Harry droops off, back to where he came from, but even though his friends don’t need the supervision anymore, he can’t pull himself away—had this experience somehow helped them, after all? Had they walked that necessary mile in each other’s shoes? Will he get his Freaky Friday happy ending?

“You were right,” Caitlin says, her eyes melted in Barry’s, so in love, and still so scared—it must be an exhausting balancing act, “I didn’t understand how you could go out there and risk your life every day knowing how it made me feel.”

“I’m not sure I did know, Cait.” Barry grabs around her hands, and shakes his head. “Not until today. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Caitlin gives a small smile. “So am I.”

Barry blinks. What’s Caitlin sorry for?

“I get it now,” she says. “Why you _have to go_. Your speed- it’s amazing. You make a difference in people’s lives. Like you have in mine.”

Barry brings a hand to Caitlin’s cheek. “You know I could never do this without you, right?”

“Damn straight, you couldn’t,” Cisco blurts out, too overcome with emotion to hold back—his two friends, his hopelessly in love friends are finally working through their problems and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen; it’s enough to make any man a little—

“ _Cisco_ ,” Caitlin warns.

“Got it.” He nods, and trips a step back. “Not my moment. My bad.”

Cisco toes back another few steps, watching Barry and Caitlin bring their foreheads together, and he puts his fist up in the air, Breakfast Club style. He knew this Freaky Friday thing would pay off.

Content that all is well in S.T.A.R labs again, Cisco leaves his best friends to reconcile some more—as much as he loves them he’s had his fill of this relationship drama for the day. Time to call Joe and tell him they can fix the other people affected by the meta.

“You took off my bra?” he hears Caitlin ask, her voice some distance away.

“Yeah,” Barry laughs. “I’m sorry, it was torture.”

Cisco smiles, a trip in his step, and tracks back towards the Cortex at the tune of his best friends’ laughter.

 

 

 

**\- fin -**

 


End file.
